The "drone dilemma" persists in the European Theatre, attracting—and apparently avoiding—weapons-fire attempts to bring them down. Vokel Air Base is 85 miles south of Amsterdam and Eindhoven Airport is an international civilian and military airport—and the second largest airport in the Netherland—so the drone incursions constitute a major concern. John Greenewald shows how the DoD was concerned by the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence's initiative as John takes us Inside the Pentagon’s Review of Christopher Mellon’s Alleged UFO Crash Retrieval Text. Interesting on several accounts, including its illustrating coordination problems within multi-letter agencies. Luis Cayetano probes deeply into the confusion of Governmental nomenclature with More on Yankee Blue. While the supposed secret operation "might itself just be a complete fabrication in its entirety," Luis helps us understand Government-speak. We hear from New York Post reporter Ben Cost that 3I/ATLAS Expert Accepts Skeptic’s $1,000 Wager That Aliens Won’t Visit By 2030 — That’s How Much He Believes His Wild Comet Claims. Neither Avi Loeb nor Michael Shermer should suffer much from a relatively minuscule (considering their likely worth) bet; plus whoever loses the wager contributes it to the Galileo Project Foundation, which Loeb co-founded and of which Shermer is an affiliate and research team member. Publicity stunt? (WM)

Despite the bad grammar of the headline, university boffins from Utrecht and Berkeley have discovered, through "tightly controlled experiments," that chimpanzees "adjust their decisions based on how strong the available evidence is." Perhaps today's humans ought to follow their example. And at Queen Mary University in London, England, Scientists Now Know That Bees Can Process Time, A First In Insects. Using flashes of light of different durations, bees have demonstrated they can figure out where to find food to their liking. "They're not just machines for our purposes," said doctoral student Alex Davidson, a viewpoint which humans would do well to adopt in regard to all species. (LP)

It takes two excellent episodes for UFO Talker Michael Ryan to cover Keith Chester's Strange Company: Military Encounters with UFOs in World War II, published by Anomalist Books. Commentator and Book Reviewer Christine Scott labels the volume "Our Book of the Year," and Michael says "This is one of the most well-researched books on UFOs I've ever read." Both observe how Chester widens the field of the "foo fighters" well beyond the conventional understanding of small "balls of light." Michael's show notes delineate numerous points he discusses with Keith in the first Part of this dialogue, concerning much of the background behind the Allies' problems with the foo fighters, as well as the strange types that were encountered. In Part 2: Interview with Keith Chester we get more of those spine-wrenching meetups, and learn that many of the reports and photographs surely generated from those harrowing experiences have never been made public. Michael Ryan and Christine Scott's Review of Age of Disclosure enumerates parts to the documentary familiar to, or dissatisfying to us grizzled UFO veterans, but they admit folks "newer to the phenomenon...love it." Understanding that the film is "made for" that much wider group of society, improving their understanding seems a worthwhile moneymaking proposition. The eyewitness account in this episode of a late '70s personal encounter is not to be missed, either. (WM)

On December 4-6, 2025, the Society for UAP Studies (SUAPS) will hold "a fully online, globally accessible event..." This announcement highlights the Distinguished Keynote Speakers (Professors Steve Fuller and Ron Westrum) and Featured Plenary Presentations from an international group of leading minds. Information is included on the Society's aggressive and laudable mission, and where to find more information on the Conference. (Full disclosure: this writer is an Affiliate Member of SUAPS by dint of Board Membership in another organization.) Coincidentally, SUAPS Board of Advisors Members Michael Bohlander and Kimberly S. Engels team with Karin Austin, Director of Rice University's Center for the Impossible and the John Mack Institute, to urge us to pay attention to UFO/UAP Close Encounter witnesses in “Don’t look up?“ – Why It Is Past Time for Serious Holistic Research Into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. Following the work of Dr. John Mack (Engels is also Research Director of the John Mack Institute), the trio of scholars makes a powerful, well-referenced, wide-ranging, balanced, credible, and, yes, courageous case for not merely respecting those involved in Close Encounter experiences, but for involving them "directly in research, discussion, and policy development." (WM)

There are all sorts of fascinating reads in the FBI's Freedom of Information Act vault, perhaps none so intriguing as its official Bigfoot file. Consisting primarily of correspondence prompted by media coverage in 1976 and 1977, the file is proof positive that the US government (at least once upon a time) took the subject of Bigfoot seriously. Do you know who takes the subject even more seriously? The field researchers because Hunting for Bigfoot Relies More on Science Than Skeptics Think. The researchers themselves follow fairly established steps in their research—their own scientific method—and the equipment used is undeniably high tech (like night vision goggles, and parabolic microphones). It makes the case for "citizen science" having a real impact on what is known about that bipedal, hairy, and so far unidentified hominid. Meanwhile, Bigfoot Sightings Inspire a Quirky New Off-Broadway Musical opening this February. The Manhattan Theatre Club will debut Bigfoot! A New Musical. The show is described as a "larger-than-life musical tale of corrupt politicians, small town paranoia and misunderstood youth." This we'd love to see! (CM)

More perspectives on new documentary, led by the government insider who in 2017 facilitated making public the footage of three Naval-UFO encounters. Mellon's observations, questions, and recommendations are numerous, hard-hitting, and compelling. Mellon and Luis Elizondo join NewsNation's Chris Cuomo in Making UFO Documentary Was Like 'Birthing an Elephant’: Producer. The pair highlight what's changed in the past eight years. One of the recent academic/scientific/technical public groups that arose to further the discussion along, the Sol Foundation, presents The Origins of Disclosure: Crashes, Archives, and Secrets with Leslie Kean. Kean gives a "deep dive" into the worldwide UFO problem and responses to it as experienced during her journalistic career. We learn more about how the 2017 news was broken, as well as the more recent David Grusch revelations, and Kean's thoughts on what should be next. Now to Age of Disclosure? - Need to Know<. Veteran UFO researchers/writers Bryce Zabel and Richard Dolan discuss the film's strengths and weaknesses. For folks who've not seen the documentary there's mention of its most controversial elements. These two co-authors of the remarkable 2012 book A.D. After Disclosure: When the Government Finally Reveals the Truth About Alien Contact close with their own summations as to how this latest chapter fits into the entire UFO-Human saga. (WM)

With ancillary work from The Debrief's Tim McMillan noted, John Greenewald describes yet another apparent "FOIA foul-up" that at least raises questions about US Government incompetence, if not something worse. It bears upon Luis Elizondo's claims of running AATIP and the US Government's adamant statements to the contrary. This of course affects how one processes Lue's remarks in the just-released documentary The Age of Disclosure and the overarching question of appropriate governmental secrecy. By coincidence, we have another such case in US Air Force Silent on Alleged Covert UFO-Tracking Program Revealed by James Clapper. Christopher Sharp points to former long-time Director of National Intelligence Clapper's comments in that documentary, and Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough's lack of information on Clapper's contentions. More perspective comes from Bret Baier's conversation with David Grusch as rendered in Shocking UFO Findings Revealed: 'We Have Proof'. They discuss "the alleged proof of ‘non-human sentience’ the U.S. has recovered and the harassment he [Grusch] says he’s received from being a whistleblower." Grusch also seems very hopeful Donald Trump will become that quasi-mythological "Disclosure President." That becomes part of the discussion as the Yale UFO Society Hosts Panel Calling for Government Transparency. Seriously-qualified speakers and good context star in Youssef Mazouz' article, and efforts such as these may help push the needle along. (WM)

This interview with parapsychologist Hugh Macdonald includes discussions on US Navy psych research, (think: a real Clockwork Orange), the lab of Philip Zimbardo (the psychologist in charge of the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment), and the psychic powers of Belita Adair. Adair was 13 at the time, subjected to various traumatic stimuli and essentially treated like a "psychic lab rat." The Children's Crusade, Pt. 1 details her backstory, the environment that fostered her psychic skills and how she came to be a pawn in the personal aspirations of US Army psychological warfare expert Andrija Puharich. Puharich's methods were highly questionable, using extreme measures to extract from Adair information regarding "scientific formulae, atomic numbers, weapons designs, and entities from a planet realm she only knew as the Sabian World." (CM)

In the first of two related blog posts, philosopher Michael Grosso recounts how a discussion of the mind-body problem in his philosophy class led to a significant change in his worldview. At the end of the class, a female student approached Grosso and, somewhat furtively, confided that she frequently had out-of-body experiences (OBEs), promising by way of proof to visit him next time. A week later at breakfast, he noticed his music stand had been moved to the center of his room. Right on cue his student called, claiming to have moved the stand while out-of-body. Understandably, this got his attention and "enlarged his worldview." What got mine: why did she have his home phone number? In his second post, Brain Malfunction and Miracles, Grosso muses on the relationship between the brain and consciousness. He chews lightly on the hard problem, wondering how biochemical processes in the brain can give rise to subjective experience. In what is something of a politician’s answer (to be fair, we can’t expect a definitive answer to one of philosophy’s most intractable conundrums in 300 words), he takes the familiar line that maybe the brain is not a generator of consciousness but a receiver (conveniently leaving all the issues of the mind-brain problem intact). Grosso then offers his evidence, that brain trauma, rather than destroying or degrading consciousness experience, can enhance it. In this he includes experience of NDEs, cognitive malfunctions that lead to savantism in different fields, and accidents with severe head trauma and degenerative brain disease sometimes unlocking hitherto hidden talents in art or music. There is certainly weirdness there, but the "receiver" trope is, to say the least, less than parsimonious, and maybe more than a little hand wavy. Alas, the catalogue of neurological anomalies still falls well short of proof in the absence of a more disciplined explanatory framework. (JS)

Two people who've played no small role in the film's genesis discuss a bipartisan screening of Dan Farah's The Age of Disclosure, now publicly available. Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean describe the event, its participants, and some takeaways from the documentary. More feedback comes from The Independent's Kelly Rissman as the Director Behind Buzzy UFO Documentary Hints The President Could Confirm Aliens Exist. Rissman's coverage about the "buzzy" (attention-grabbing) film is decently straightforward. And The Age of Disclosure - 20 Voices Reveal the UFO Truth features an impressive, multidisciplinary cast of reviewers offering their insights upon the documentary before its November 21st national release. They each speak from the perspectives of their own professional interests, and Matt Ford and co-host Anna Brady-Estevez well highlight the importance of these commentators' remarks. This was a very informative, wide-ranging advertisement for the economic, technological, scientific, and psychological need for improved transparency and The Age of Disclosure's potential contribution toward those goals. Then there's Jason Colavito's Review of "Age of Disclosure": An "Ancient Aliens" Episode with Better Lighting. Jason makes points about some of the documentary's claims and "scripted elements." But this reviewer felt Jason's piece overly ad hominem. Plus, the film's target is probably the larger public who for decades generally got a "nothing to see folks" from government and mainstream news. The knowledge level in the subject and personal involvement of every “cast” member likely far exceeds, and demands—given the continuing “UFO stigma”—a much greater level of commitment and courage on their parts than that of most reviewers. (WM)

In 1518, the city of Strasbourg languished in a hot, humid summer. In the midst of the heat, a single woman stepped out into the street and began to dance, a  jerky, untimed flailing that seemed closer to a fit than anything else. She could not be stopped, and gradually over the course of about 8 weeks another 400 people were drawn into the strange steps, as if listening to music only they could hear and dancing until their limbs could no longer move and their worn shoes were shredded. At the time, there were no chemical weapons that could have caused this "epidemic," and those affected showed no signs of actual illness. What could have caused The Dancing Plague of 1518? Modern Theories of Causation are intriguing. At the time there was widespread malnutrition and disease, weakening the population and thereby making the spread of a "hysterical" ailment easier. People were also disenamoured with the Church, making them much more vulnerable emotionally and spiritually. It was the perfect setting for mass psychogenic illness. It was also ideal for ergot poisoning, being that there was a famine and no food could be wasted. The takeaway from this is the realization of "how our own environments shape the way we think, feel, and act," even now in our so called modern times. (CM)

A cautionary tale about instant UFO-related sensations, and it may not be useful for those disinterested in the lengths to which internet "UFOOLery" can go. We kept this claim in our queue for some time as it possessed more "warning signs" than your favorite military installation. At 35 minutes into the podcast, host Ben Hendy begins voicing doubts about his headline story, and we hope Hendy later ceased promoting it, though this particular episode had nearly 600,000 views when we re-watched. There's now a denouement of sorts to the ongoing tale. Patrick Scott Armstrong, whose Vetted podcast we regard a very worthy source, posts "James" Admits It's a Hoax. It seems the "alien tube finder" faked his own death in a subsequent video for his internet followers; Patrick debunked that video and the whole tale; and then Patrick received hate mail and even death threats for his efforts. Patrick himself is so (appropriately) angered that the latter part of his "James hoax admission" video is mostly repetitive and borders on a rant. Patrick does link to his "debunking" video which raised all the ruckus: "James" Dies Drilling into UFO on Livestream (The Real Story). (WM)

The long-awaited streaming premiere of Dan Farah's film is set for today. Steph Whiteside gives thumbnail descriptions and also some videos of just under half of the seriously significant people whose statements will hopefully bear some considerable weight in the continuing dialogue on UFOs/UAP. The upcoming documentary has, of course, gained recognition in the Entertainment world, as Caitlin McCormack headlines Filmmaker Declares Existence of UFOs ‘No Longer a Question’ — As Doc Probes 80 years of Secrets. This New York Post piece is a rather straightforward expose of the main points Dan Farah wants the doc to make. As an aside, McCormack's perceived need to explain what the Manhattan Project was doesn't bode well for the knowledge/awareness level of the readers. Now to The New York Times and Ben Kenigsberg's ‘The Age of Disclosure’ Review: Release the Extraterrestrial Files. Kenigsberg's upfront employment of the term "talking heads" for the thirty-four former and current government officials, military notables, and scientists prepares one for his inevitable conclusion that "anyone who sits through its nearly two hours of unprovable claims is a chump." (WM)

Micah Hanks reviews the work of Scottish naturalist Adrian Shine who spent decades investigating the Loch Ness monster before becoming what he calls a "sympathetic sceptic." Shine has devoted his career to vindicating witnesses’ reported experience, while at the same time explaining they’ve been watching an old log or a boat wake. His formative childhood sea serpent sighting in 1957 launched a lifelong quest that culminated in the disabusing realization that those mysterious multi-humped creatures terrorizing sailors were by-and-large, displacement wakes from passing vessels. Apparently, the introduction of steamships to previously calm waters created dramatic V-shaped wave patterns that, when viewed from low angles, looked something like serpentine bodies slithering through water. The famous 1817 Gloucester Harbor sea serpent? A leatherback turtle. The HMS Daedalus encounter in 1848? Driftwood. Historian Sharon Hill, on her Strange Claims Adjuster blog, also gives a toughly knowing, broadly structuralist take on cryptids Historian Answers Questions About the Origins and Meanings of Mysterious Creatures. In this case, the mysterious creatures that dwell at the fringes of our experience, are not real, or at least their reality is neither here nor there (probably there)—their social function and development over time is where the anthropological action is. Whereas Shine spent his life discovering not monsters but human perceptual limitations, Hill’s interest lies in why they are believed in in the first place. The uncertain, liminal zones these creatures inhabit retreat in the face of better understanding—but one wonders if the space for a more meaningful relationship with the world diminishes. (JS)

A couple of skeptical takes on the sensational Telepathy Tapes. Meghan Boilard writes at length on the "unsubstantiated claims" made by podcast host Ky Dickens that autistic persons have telepathic powers. This notion, which has no basis in science, has not been peer-reviewed, yet is gaining credibility among hard-of-thinking believers, who presumably are happy to buy the $40 t-shirts which accompany the theory. This "disturbing trend" prompts an analysis by Stuart Vyse on Autism Pseudoscience: Facilitated Communication, S2C, and ‘Telepathy Tapes’, which addresses these "tapes" and similar claims. The podcast spoutings of "experts," who somewhat bombard the listener with scientific-sounding terms, is sufficient, says Vyse, "an expert in superstition, pseudoscience, and critical thinking," to give them and their "laughable" claims enough weightiness to impress those with little reasoning, or who are desperate to find something which helps their autistic loved ones. Throw in Mark Zuckerberg, says Vyse, who no longer uses "fact-checkers" for the garbage he allows to circulate around the globe, and "today's widespread anti-science and rejection of expertise" will soon be unstoppable. (LP)